9 Weeks since Surgery

My rehabilitation is progressing. I am not seeing the big jumps in progress the way I saw earlier on, and that is a little frustrating, but to be expected.

My knee just swells slightly when I workout, but ice takes the swelling away.

I am doing the following exercises now, either in physical therapy, or at home:

• Stationary Bike - 30 minutes
• Eliptical Machine - 15 minutes
  
• Leg Press with weights
  
• Calf Raises - both seated and standing with weights
  
• Squats with weights
• Hamstring Curls - while sitting with weights
  
• Quick Steps - while in a squat position - on a trampoline
  
• Lateral moves in a squat position across a floor
• Starting to work on running exercises
• Balance exercises on balance boards or standing on balance balls

I feel my knee most the time... whether I am walking, going up or down the stairs, sitting with my legs out, crossed, or whatever. The feeling does not hurt.... I just know that my left knee exists... the right knee just comes with the rest of my body... if you know what I mean.

Sometimes I don't feel my left knee at all, and then I start to think... oh, wow, this is going to be what it is like when I am totally recovered.... and then I start to feel my knee... whether it is stiff, or tired, etc..

I notice that when I am standing, I favor my right leg rather than my left. I am trying to make an effort of distributing my weight evenly on both legs.

My physical therapist said today that the next 4 weeks are the most critical in my rehab because I am starting to feel good with my leg, and at the same time, the ACL has totally been accepted in my body yet. This is the period where most people get into trouble by doing too much or tweaking their knee and retearing their ACL..... so, I say, it is better to be cautious!

8 Weeks since Surgery

It is now 8 weeks since surgery and the infection in my incision is gone and the incision is healing quite nicely.... again!

I have full extension back, and am walking normally. We actually started working on a little running in physical therapy yesterday!

My knee is still a little swollen, and does swell up when I exercise it, but 15 minutes of ice after the workouts or physical therapy, and the swelling is reduced.

I am able to march, with high knees, but I am not able to kick my foot up to my butt. I have the flexibility, but my hamstring is not allowing me to actively kick backwards bending from the knee. My physical therapist says that it takes time for the hamstring to heal when a hamstring graft is used for the ACL.

Oh, and I got my leg to bend 141 degrees.... the goal is 150 degrees!

High Heels in 55 Days

It has been 55 days since my surgery (7 weeks and 6 days) and I wore high heel shoes today. I am so done with those Birkenstocks. No offense to Birkenstocks, they are so comfortable, but they do not go with my suits and office attire!

Seven Weeks Since Surgery

I am now riding the bike for 30 minutes on a regular basis. It feels so good to ride the bike. I am winded after 30 minutes, so hopefully this will build back my stamina.

I have moved on to more challenging exercises at physical therapy. Yesterday, I did the leg press, calf raises, and hamstring exercises with weights. Then, I did little hopping exercises, and marching exercises to work on my walking. I moved on to work on lateral exercises... so I did side stepping... kind of like what basketball players do when they are practicing defense. I did this across a basketball floor a couple of times... that was good.... I got a good quad burn from this. After that, we moved on to balance. I stood on a balance disk with my left foot and threw a ball to a trampoline-like device and had to catch the ball. This was a great exercise for balance and stamina for my leg. Then on to control - the big monster machine makes me work more on control than strength and I did that for both my quads and hamstrings.

I got my leg to bend to 141 degrees.... my target is 150. That is what my right legs is when my heel touches my butt.

Today, when I started to work on my full extension.... I already had it!! That is the first time. I think that is considered a breakthrough!

I am still not comfortable wearing high heels, and I am still on the cusp of walking without a limp.... I can feel that next week will be my big breakthrough. I will let you know as soon as it happens.

Rounding out the Sixth Week

So, I am at the end of the sixth week, on the cusp of the seventh. I had a turning point yesterday. I actually did my normal weight routine, with less weight for my legs. I rode the bike for 20 minutes and boy did that feel good. I am so ready to move on to more challenging exercises.

Today in physical therapy we did just a little bit of lateral exercises... but I can hardly wait for Thursday, my next apt. I am ready to go farther.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I am almost back to my normal walking gait.

Unfortunately, my muscles are starting to atrophy. Since I am not playing tennis every day, my core and upper body is just not getting enough of a workout. In addition, my right side is not getting what it needs, and is starting to atrophy. This just means that I am going to work a bit harder to keep my muscles in good shape!

6 Weeks from Surgery

It has been 6 weeks since surgery, and for the most part I am progressing quite nicely. My infection has almost cleared up. One more day of antibiotics!!!

I went to physical therapy yesterday and it was hard to feel smooth on the olyptical machine, but after about 5 minutes, my knee and muscles loosened up. I added the leg press to my workout routine. That is a big step. I now have 4 different weight machines that I am doing.

Today I did my exercises at home, and it only took about 30 seconds on the bike before my knee was loose. I think that the infection tightened up my knee joint, and I am just now coming out of it. I think that by Friday this week, I will be back to where I was last Friday.... mentally that is tough, but at least I am back to progressing. I was a bit worried when I saw no improvement, but now I am feeling more at ease.

So, anyway, back to working out today. I did the leg press, the hamstring curl, and the calf raises at home on my Bowflex machine. All with really low weights and it felt great!!!

I am not walking with my normal gait.... once the infection is cleared and the knee joint is loosened, I think I will be walking normally!!